The internet suddenly seems different. A little sublime. Everything and nothing. I don’t know if this is an epiphany– if it is it’s certainly half baked. Nor do I know if it was necessarily incited by my exposure to Catherine Daly’s work, or if it’s merely a thought that arose simultaneously during the course of the conversation we had. Her work is not expressly technological in nature, but I think there is something in the way she seems to find dual uses for everything that makes it feel that way. In To …

Out of Touch by Brandon Tietz is a new entry into the arms race of transgressive literature, informally reignited by Chuck Palahniuk a decade or so ago. It’s an increasingly dysphoric genre; moral bankruptcy is the new black. One wonders how deep into pure unfeeling we can descend before there’s no earth left to move. Yet here is a book with a rather elegant twist: Tietz binds his narrator, Aidin, so literally to the typical themes of the genre– abandonment; addiction; intense family dysfunction– that he is inextricable from them.
You see, Aidin can’t feel a thing.  Literally. He suffers a condition that’s …

Some fairly prominent elements of Stephen Prosapio’s Dream War might seem familiar; for example, the concept of cutting-edge technology that allows trained operatives to invade other peoples’ dreams in order to ferret out hidden information, or even to plant new information, all to nefarious ends.
If this sounds like a rip-off of Christopher Nolan’s Inception, wait: Prosapio’s copyright on Dream War is from 2007, predating the film by three years. And furthermore, it’s only in the practical machinery of the dream-link concept that Prosapio’s novel resembles Nolan’s film. The sum products diverge wildly. …

Richard Thomas is a busy man.  He’s a husband and father of twins.  He’s a graphic designer.  He helps moderate a writing workshop at The Cult, one of the most popular author websites in the world.  He’s helped edit zines and magazines alike.  He’s pursuing his MFA in Fiction.  He’s part of a group of up-and-coming writers who each year help each other through the hardships of writing a novel.  And yeah, he’s also a writer whose debut novel, a neo-noir thriller called Transubstantiate, was published in July 2010, the flagship …

Casual brutality, sex, and disorder: the heroes of noir have never been terribly endearing to the heart, but the seven nihilistic souls of Richard Thomas’s Transubstantiate seem like they were born ruined, and are likely to die that way. The story draws heavily on all the beloved accouterments of the neo-noir tradition— fractured narratives; cynicism; disorientation; ruthless beatings— but the story branches out into other areas, exploring themes of mysticism and the unknowable, even broaching the peripheral terrors of Lovecraftian horror.
We follow our seven characters over the course of events …

Bret Easton Ellis burst onto the literary scene in 1985 with his debut novel, Less Than Zero. Less Than Zero was born smack-dab in the middle of the Reagan 80’s, a time of debauchery and decadence shrouded in a Cold War haze; the dawning of the era where the self-indulgent I would obliterate the once-united We into exile. MTV was in its infancy and Betamax was promising technology.  Clay, Less Than Zero’s protagonist, had a problem merging on freeways, and couldn’t seem to shake the implications of an overbearing billboard …

One showcases, among other things, the smallness of the world. The musicians within hail from all over the globe: Australia, Belarus, Ukraine, the UK, Germany, the United States. Beyond that, the album boasts an inspiring ingenuity that reminds us, without having to say it, that music is as vital a force as nature; it will find release. Project Bluebird boasts over twelve writers.The twins comprising Aloe Up— a folk outfit with elements of breakbeat electronica— collaborate across an ocean, one in Denver, one in London. Tom Peel’s backing tracks come …

Caleb Ross’ stories do not behoove summaries. Let’s just get that out of the way. Let’s also just say that they contain blood drinking, deformity, death, and disfigurement, to varying degrees. These stories swirl like nightmares: a populace of anti-protagonists so wounded that there is generally no hope for their redemption. The reader acts as sponge, absorbing their pain. Making sense of it. As the reader, you are the first man on the scene; as such, you are to perform the tasks the characters themselves are no longer capable of performing: observe, record, and interpret. Seek your own closure. …